Particl Activates RingCT and Bulletproofs to Advance Blockchain Privacy

Hardfork Enables Completely Untraceable Currency Transactions at Low Cost,

Precedes Upcoming Particl Open Marketplace Mainnet Launch

Particl, the open-source and decentralized privacy platform, has announced the activation of RingCT and Bulletproofs to its mainnet. With this hardfork, Particl’s already rigorous privacy protocol has been strengthened even further, giving users the ability to send completely untraceable currency transactions at a fairly low cost.

 Originally made popular by the open-source cryptocurrency Monero, the RingCT privacy protocol fully anonymizes the transacting amounts and participants of any transaction made using the protocol and makes financial data mining ineffective. Supported by cryptography, RingCT provides very strong privacy and plausible deniability that is supported by cryptography.

 Unlike Monero and other RingCT-based cryptocurrencies, however, Particl’s implementation is compatible with the Bitcoin codebase, which is much more flexible and programmable than the more rigid Cryptonote codebase. As a result, Particl is enabling the RingCT protocol to reach its full potential, not only making currency transactions untraceable, but also bringing anonymity to decentralized applications and atomic swaps, as well as the Lightning Network, which is now running on Particl’s testnet.

 The accompanying privacy release to the Particl mainnet, Bulletproofs, is a new generation of range proofs that scale logarithmically rather than linearly, making transactions less costly to send and lighter in size. Also referred to as non-interactive zero-knowledge short proofs, Bulletproofs offer a groundbreaking improvement over regular range proofs, reducing their size by approximately 70%. This in turn reduces transaction fees and the space they take on the blockchain by the same ratio.

 Open Marketplace Launch Next

 Arriving on Particl’s second anniversary, these key privacy upgrades precede the launch of the eagerly anticipated Particl Open Marketplace. Due to be released on the mainnet on August 12th, the Particl Open Marketplace is central to Particl’s mission of delivering on one of blockchain’s core promises: enabling fully private, decentralized and permissionless eCommerce.

 Available on testnet since May 2018, the Particl Open Marketplace is a 100% decentralized P2P marketplace where anyone in the world can buy and sell products and services for cryptocurrencies. Powered by Particl’s PART token, the self-moderated marketplace is entirely private/anonymous, and generates no harvestable data, allowing users to keep their shopping habits, financial data, and sales data private.

 Designed for ease-of-use by crypto enthusiasts and the mainstream public alike, the marketplace offers a near-zero cost experience that features no fee for buyers, only a small listing fee for vendors, no sales fee, no subscription fee, no escrow fee, and no payment processing fee except for typical Bitcoin-like transaction fees. Since no company or central authority collects marketplace fees, all fees generated by the platform are redistributed to stakers on top of the regular staking rewards with a minimum of 3% staking ratio in 2019.

 Guided by Privacy

Particl is funded by The Particl Foundation,  a non-profit Swiss organization  serving the Particl ecosystem and promoting awareness of financial privacy. The Foundation’s purpose is to promote and develop new technologies and applications, especially in the fields of new open and decentralized software architectures.

“With this activation of RingCT and Bulletproofs to our mainnet, blockchain’s ability to reduce the cost of eCommerce goods and services by up to 40% comes one step closer to reality,” says Paul Schmitzer, Director of Marketing Strategy for Particl. “Rather than launching a new protocol simply for its own sake, the Particl team’s focus has always been to converge the best existing blockchain components to create truly useful tools and satisfying experiences.”

“Our latest privacy measures set the stage for the imminent debut of the Particl Open Marketplace,” Schmitzer continues. “We look forward to bringing this 100% decentralized marketplace to the mainnet, where anyone in the world can buy and sell products and services for cryptocurrencies while keeping their shopping habits, financial data, and sales data private.”

About Particl:

Particl is an open-source and decentralized privacy platform built on the blockchain. It allows decentralized applications (Dapps) of all sorts to be built within a secure, highly-scalable environment and be integrated directly into Particl’s flagship wallet, Particl Desktop.

Particl’s mission is to foster a new decentralized, private and democratic economy supported by its platform and native currency (PART). All the fees generated by the platform are paid to the PART coin holders who are securing the network.

Particl is funded by The Particl Foundation, (Particl Stiftung), a non-profit Swiss foundation registered in Zug in July, 2017.

Website: https://particl.io/
About Particl: https://particl.wiki/platform
Telegram: https://t.me/particlproject
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/particl/about/